


A new order

by nargle_42



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: ... i should hope obviously, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Centaurs, Character Study, Eventual Romance, Gen, Merpeople, Origin Story, Revolution, Slow Burn, dark!dennis creevey, dark!dobby, dennis creevey & giant squid, not between dobby and dennis, obviously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29430843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nargle_42/pseuds/nargle_42
Summary: A boy, embittered by the loss of his brother. An elf, bravely facing certain death. This is their story.A crackfic gone weirdly serious, idek. Featuring certain!death, house-elf politics, and the giant squid.
Relationships: Colin Creevey & Dennis Creevey, Dennis Creevey & Dobby, Dennis Creevey/Original Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7
Collections: Valentine's day 2021





	A new order

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glimmer89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimmer89/gifts).



> For the TMOE discord server's Valentine's gift exchange! 
> 
> This started as a crackship but then got weirdly serious so... idek lol. 
> 
> This is the first thing I've ever like... written, and it's unbetaed so sorry if it's not quite great bjdsbujkesf\\. Please tell me if I've also done something wrong in posting the fic.
> 
> I seriously doubt this will get more than 5 hits, but i'll try and finish it <3
> 
> Obviously, I don't own Harry Potter, this is just a fanfic.

In the solitude of the night, I think about him, my younger self. Fresh eyed, red cheeked. Brimming with the joy-de-vivre that only youth, or rather ignorance can bring. I say this as if I didn’t note the passing of my 17th birthday a few nights ago, the time for celebration, long gone. It was hard to grasp how it had all gone so wrong in so little time.

I think it must have really started when my brother got his Hogwarts letter. I won’t be likely to forget that Sunday morning in a hurry, awakened by dad’s shrieks from downstairs. “Wizards must send things by _owl_ , Den!”. I would be helpfully supplied by my brother later. “It’s just so cool” he chirped, blissfully unaware that our father, a milkman by trade for over 30 years, was currently sat rigid and unblinking, shaking as he read the parchment-that-would-change-everything at the dinner table.

Dad was having his first existential crisis at fifty years of age, processing the existence of another universe: whackier and wilder, that apparently existed and in which my brother- my perfectly normal, infectiously cheery and dreadfully optimistic brother- belonged to. The unspoken words hung heavy in the air, that he belonged to… but we did not. Colin was characteristically, completely oblivious to this, of course. “Hey, d’you reckon that the owl’ll stay still enough to get a picture?!”

Dad had always worried for Colin. So did I. About how he never fit in with the other kids at school. “Stop being... So. _damn_. _Happy_ … all the time.” the bullies would leer and scowl, each word like a barb thrown in between punches. “ _freak_ ”. They’d spit. Still, Colin never stopped. Being happy that is. He’d be happy while he was taking the hits, happy when they bruised. Happy the entire walk home, when they would miraculously heal by the time he returned and would tell Dad, just back from a long day, about how great his day was, how about him? Dad knew. How could he not? That his own son was being bullied for being not quite the same as the other kids. There was always something about Colin. He’d plead with his son, to let him go to the teachers, get those kids suspended. Colin would refuse, with a sensible, placating air that would only arise when we tried to help him. There was no proof, he said calmly, and those kids had rich parents. Crazy rich. Anything he’d say would get covered up, overlooked, and the bullying would get worse. Besides- he would smile, all the previous weight on his visage lifted, those kids certainly never got to come home to the best family in the entire world, and because of this, those kids could never be as happy as he was.

And that was fine for us. Well, not fine, but fine as it could be. Looking back on it now, I doubt that Colin was happy. How could he have been? We all believed him, he burned as bright as the sun. It was idealism, love for a world which was not obligated to love him back. Whatever it was, my brother Colin wasn’t happy.

Dad had always worried about Colin, and that must’ve been why he caved in when Pomona Sprout, with her spells and knowledge and unwavering cheeriness, came knocking to whisk us away into her… and Colin’s…. magical world. She reminded me of him, in a way, and I assumed she did to Dad too.

I think that’s when he finally let Colin go.

Dad and I had to adapt to this Colin-less dynamic for two whole years after we had stolen a glimpse of that fantastical world through Diagon alley: the bustle of strange crowds, fragments of conversations that were in English that we still didn’t understand, the tantalising scent of magic (vaguely like gunpowder, but tinged with a familiarity I couldn't put my finger on). Two years since we tentatively sent Colin, an inferno of excitement, bounding through the solid platform to catch that otherworldly train, luggage and all. Two years since he vanished into thin air… from our world, from our lives.

Dad and I lived in a codependent relationship, of sorts. I tried my best to fill the void that Colin had filled in our lives, the void that kept dad together after mum died. I, at nine years old, became a master of wide smiles, forced enthusiasm and feigned innocence as soon as I returned from school, wiping mud from my feet onto the ‘home is where the heart is’ mat and stepping through the front door. In this way, I pretended for Dad’s sake, and he pretended for mine. I pretended I didn’t notice when he would stare sorrowfully at the two empty chairs at the table during breakfast, and would diligently continue working on my (burnt to cinders) toast. In return, he wouldn’t notice that I never smiled as widely as Colin did, or shined as bright.

When Colin came back for summer, it was like the sun had finally returned. The house would shake with the force of the tinny radio Dad had fixed up in his spare time, the one that only played the 30s station. Colin would laugh with joy as we swayed through the kitchen, pretending we could dance, delightedly snap pictures with his analog camera- a quirk he insisted he carry from the muggle to wizarding world.

Those precious days, I would remember fondly later. How the sizzling of bacon and pancakes (Colin’s favorite, Dad could never bring himself to make these when it was just the two of us) wafted into the air to wake us up and send us racing from our rooms to the kitchen. At breakfast, Dad and I, accustomed to a weighted silence between us, would listen to Colin babble about his time at Hogwarts. How he was loving all of his new subjects (Transfiguration is where you get to turn one thing into another, Den! You would love it!), how he had made so many new friends.

A name... ‘Harry Potter’ kept bubbling up to the surface when he would speak. No matter what he talked about, Harry Potter would somehow be related to it. (“There’s this wizarding sport called Quidditch, where they play on flying brooms… Harry was made the youngest seeker in a century, he’s wicked good!” he proclaimed proudly). Dad cleared his throat. “Colin… do you say… _like_ this Harry Potter character?”, his eyebrows wiggled teasingly.

Colin, who had gone beet red, stuttered for the first time during his unbroken mental siege. “O-of course I like Harry, Dad, he’s my close friend”. Convinced that he’s thrown suspicion off himself, the colour faded from his cheeks and he launched into a suspiciously detailed description of wizarding photography (“You won’t believe this, but their photos move”).

Dad’s eyes, peering over the morning paper, met mine and twinkled in a private joke. It was left unsaid, the joy we had that our Colin had finally found his place.

But summer had slipped through our fingers as soon as they grasped it, and Colin was gone. Our worlds had dimmed again, the silence returning. Dad started burying himself in work, coming late from the extra shifts he took. We lived separate lives of solitude, even when we were together. Even still, I treasured what we had. We were the ones left behind, and we had to build our lives together. And it was fine. I had accepted that this was the life we were to lead. A comfortable, yet lonely companionship.

Until the day where it all went wrong.

Until I too, got a Hogwarts letter.


End file.
